Travel Adventures For Girls

There is a reason why people go to Paris, not London, for love,

But try to tell me anything.

I arrived at Gatwick on a Sunday,

Innocent as a cardboard suitcase,

But a week of drizzle and English reserve would make anyone want to slip down a side street and change their name.

If your Love hands you your skin and asks you to kindly fuck off,

You can always disappear on the Underground--

Blue line Piccadilly, Victoria line north--

But finding your way can be tricky,

It's crowded and busy, no place for a yokel;

You can end up with more time than purpose, dragging the best of you behind in the damp corridors like some eviscerated doll,

Far from home

And the only thing to do, though you've hardly the heart for it,

Is to get off the train and let yourself be swept toward the exit by a sea of souls who are all better looking than you and not bleeding.

Get up. Get out.

Sorry, you're not allowed to die here.

Thank you for visiting London, and remember,

Mind the gap.

___________

3 Short Poems

SUNDAY

Sunday brought her lips to Host,
That saving flesh reveals;
But Monday was a cruel cook
To serve such bitter meals.
_________

THE QUEEN OF LOVE

She posed a question with her flesh
As if she were the Patroness
Of love that's not replying;
A sting will burn but rarely kill--
She finds the honey sweeter still
When bees are faint and dying.
__________

I INVITED YOU IN

I invited you in, and would again--
Like an eager fool--like this--
Too hypnotized
To recognise
Your almond-tasting kiss.

____________

The Dark Bird

There is a great dark bird

And its feathers are made

Of every day

When love was scarce

And safe was just a steely locked place to hide my heart in.

The dark bird's oldest feathers

Are rooted deepest.

They are named:

Violence

Loneliness

Neglect

Cruelty

And isolation.

Always, when I feel worst,

I know the dark bird is there, like a curse,

An anti-mother,

Whose obsidian heart does not beat at all.

And me?

I am her baby.

God have mercy.

One moment, I may be laughing with a lover in bed,

And the next,

I find she is sister to the dark bird,

And I wish I was dead.

Alcohol

Cocaine

Sex

Religion

Eating

Not eating

Doing the right thing

Doing the wrong thing

Doing anything

Just to keep the dark bird away.

Listen, friend,

I know the dark bird.

She has spread her wings across and above me

Like an un-sun.

She has left her mark across my heart,

And she has called me her child,

Though I fight

Though I run.

Be stealthy,

Be respectful, as if you were entering a church.

And if you find me laughing,

If I say to you, I love you,

You're beautiful,

Stay with me...

There is no need for reproach.

Soon enough,

My own raised and forgetful voice,

The very noise of my own momentary happiness,

Will wake the bird

And she will carry off hope in her talons

Which are called:

Defeat.

Despair.

Perdition.

_________

Smoke Girl

It's an industrial town

Full of clubs and bars

And cremes in jars

That belong to girls like you

Whose hearts were left out in the rain.

I am made of lace

The judicious use

Of empty space

And just in case

I might have thought myself too fine,

You were there to remind

Me that I am worse than plain.

I'm sorry it's 6 a.m. on a Sunday.

I'll join the ghosts you keep like an arsenal in your head,

Slip out the door and come back no more;

You'll say, "She wasn't what she seemed,

Just something that I dreamed."

A Smoke Girl, gone away

A keeper of your kiss, a dancer with the dead.

_________

Wineflower

She is a wine flower--

She has drooped into sleep, softly snoring;

She does this to herself every evening.

Her back is tanned and beautiful--

With a little mole like a leopard spot;

Her hair is long flames from burning love letters

She'll never write again;

Her hair is light through a slatted window,

When she's gone back to where she's been.

And me?

I do this to myself every evening--

Puzzling out the fortunes I am reading

In her golden hair and skin.

______________

The London Limited

She's as practical as a railroad engine

And as compartmentalized as a designer bag

But she can make you flow just like her long blonde hair

And leave a circle around your heart just like the rings her wine glass leaves

In the morning

When it's over

When the tracks are cold

And the train has gone.

__________________

The Fretful Cake

A cake is worried.

The cake has fallen in love with the cutest, golden-brownest, most irresistible cinnamon apple pie ever.

When the cake sees the pie,

All her sparkler candles go off at once!

And yet,

The cake is worried.

"Once, I was trapped inside a dark cardboard box

On a shelf in aisle five of Mitzi's Food Mart on 9 Mile Road!

I was separated from myself by little bags and packets!

And I was

*blush*

For sale."

The cake thinks of her beloved pie and glazes over with helpless love.

"Darling pie! I am so sweet for you!" she thinks, dizzy with devotion.

"Will she understand," frets the lovestruck cake,

"That I came from mere powder and goo?

Will she overlook

That I needed eggs added?"

The cake, woozy with desire for the sweet cinnamon apple pie,

Never stops to consider

That her beloved was once in pieces too,

Hanging on trees in the rain

For anyone to pick?

Someone sets the cake and pie side by side on a pretty red and white checked table cloth.

Seeking a snack,

A mischievous yellow lab noses the pie over into the cake,

So that they are mooshed together.

"She kissed me!" exults the happy cake,

Who never worries about anything again.

_______________

Kitchen Magic

Leek and potato soup

is

hot and creamy

Fresh-baked bread

is

warm and dreamy

The soup seems made

for a blue-and-white bowl--

The bread sighs steam

when broken apart;

Bring them together,

dip one in the other--

Be still, my beating heart!

_____________________

Blue Cat

Little blue and white cat

Like a summer sky

Are you the only one?

Are you all alone?

See the flowering trees

Every bloom a twin of all the rest--

When they land in my hair like wandering stars,

Then I become the night sky.

Little blue and white cat

Asleep on my bed in the early morn,

At times I have felt like the only one

At times I have been so alone.

See the paintings and sculptures

Piled in the halls as numerous as magpies--

My uncle lives here.

He is as rich as he is untidy

And he has let me come to stay.

Across the courtyard

Lives my friend the zen.

She says every day is your own work of art

And her company is as warm as a kiln.

Towards noon, the blue and white cat sits on the sill and watches my rose bushes--

He is as blue as the years gone by.

He is as white as a wedding dress.

He is as unexpected and marvelous as an Italian dream.

_____________________

Morning Glory

See the vine, brittle and brown,

How december has changed this place!

The harsh winds unsettle and mar--

So recent the mornings I hurried down

The barefoot path to see your face!

A fool, I sighed, "how enchanting you are!"

___________________________________

Whispers

I was just minding my business.

Simple washerwoman, that's me.

How could I have known

Seen

Ducked

What was to be?

Brassy, brassy,

That's you.

With the boardinghouse reach to pick off stuff you see.

Grab off

Sweep off

Their feet little gals like me.

Oh,

I know,

I could holler lemme lemme lemme lemme go!

Could shout it

Scream it

But you'd think I

Didn't mean it.

Now listen, you,

Hear me when I'm talking to you, Ma'am--

When I say stop

Cease

Desist

I'm whispering just as loudly as I can!

________________________________

Thieving Varmint

Oh, you thieving varmint.

You blew into town on the noon stage,

And don't think that I don't know

You're a woman with a past;

Back east, you scandalized the one-room schoolroom

When you wouldn't recite "My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose"

And all that other rote sh*t they tried to cram down your throat.

Oh don't think that I don't know

That there's some poor dumb sodbuster someplace

Wondering where his little woman went.

Don't think that I don't know

That dance-hall girls from Topeka to Santa Fe

Keep your picture tucked in their garters.

I'm well aware

That you keep a few extra aces

Tucked up your sleeve,

And a derringer in your boot.

But what I can't understand

Is why, when I look at anything from Boot Hill to Old Blind Bob

I see your smile instead.

My heart was right here a minute ago

Until I bumped into you,

And now it's scarcer than those quarter horses from the Circle Bar Tee.

Oh, you beautiful blond-haired

Thieving varmint!

_________________